Japandroids Share Reservations about PJ Harvey Cover

Last month, we told you about Japandroids' upcoming "Heavenward Grand Prix" single, the third release in a series of seven-inches the group have been prepping since their debut full-length, Post-Nothing. While the A-side (which can be streamed from the Polyvinyl Records website here) is a dreamy slice of ethereal guitar fuzz and driving drum beats, it's still unclear how the duo treated a cover of PJ Harvey's "Shame," which is featured on the flipside. But according to an interview with the Village Voice, the band think we should lower our expectations about that cover.

A recent Q&A session with the publication found guitarist Brian King talking about the growth of the seven-inch series, which will feature five separate platters, but takes a surprisingly self-conscious turn when he admits to not being prepared to lay down the Harvey cover when they last hit the studio. Chalking it up to coming off a seven-week tour completely exhausted, King knows Japandroids could have done a lot better.

"I feel we didn't give it everything we should have," he admitted. "I'm a little bit nervous for it to come out. One of the goals with the covers was to get the covers to a point where we would be proud to give them to the band [who conceived them] and be like, 'We love your band and we did this.' I don't know if I can give that one to Polly Jean. It should have been even better than that."

While he might be too hard on this particular performance, King hopes that Japandroids' interpretations of their favourite songs, which also include takes on X and Big Black, have their fans seeking out the source material.

"I bet there's a lot of people who listen to Japandroids who don't know who Big Black are, who don't know who McLusky are [they covered 'To Hell with Good Intentions' for their early All Lies EP], who don't know who X are. And that was the first thing: 'Let's not cover bands that everyone already knows that we love, let's cover bands that we don't think a lot of people know that listen to our music.'

The "Heavenward Grand Prix" single will be issued by Polyvinyl on November 16.